The applied arts are all the arts that apply design and decoration to everyday and essentially practical objects in order to make them aesthetically pleasing. The term is used in distinction to the fine arts, which are those that produce objects with no practical use, whose only purpose is to be beautiful or stimulate the intellect in some way. In practice, the two often overlap. Applied arts largely overlap with decorative arts, and the modern making of applied art is usually called design.
Examples of applied arts are:
Industrial design – mass-produced objects.
Sculpture – also counted as a fine art.
Architecture – also counted as a fine art.
Crafts – also counted as a fine art.
Culinary arts
Ceramic art
Automotive design
Fashion design
Calligraphy
Interior design
Graphic design
Cartographic (map) design
Movements
Art movements that mostly operated in the applied arts include the following. In addition, major artistic styles such as Neoclassicism, Gothic and others cover both the fine and applied or decorative arts.
Art Nouveau
Art Deco
Arts and Crafts Movement
Bauhaus
Productivism
Museums of applied arts
Bauhaus Archive
Die Neue Sammlung, Germany
Leipzig Museum of Applied Arts, Germany
Martin-Gropius-Bau
Museum of Applied Arts (Belgrade), Serbia
Museum of Arts and Crafts, Zagreb
Museum of Applied Arts (Budapest), Hungary
Museum für angewandte Kunst Frankfurt, Germany
Museum für Angewandte Kunst (Cologne), Germany
Museum für angewandte Kunst Wien, Austria
Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts (MUDAC), Lausanne, Switzerland
National Folk Decorative Art Museum, Kyiv, Ukraine
Powerhouse Museum (Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences), Sydney
Stieglitz Museum of Applied Arts (Saint Petersburg), Russia
Prague Museum of Decorative Arts, Czech Republic
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach, Florida